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PCG Revelation PIA
So here’s my second commemorative fleet refit: Scare’s Revelation cruiser/destroyer/thingy. I felt bad about submitting the incredibly sub-par work that was the Trinity last year (anyone who disagrees is a heretic and will be purged), so consider this a somewhat-late apology. Overview The Revelation-class is a medium artillery cruiser of course it is designed under {Project:Enlightenment} to act as versatile anticapital vessel for the PCG’s higher-priority fleets- particularly the council-led Battlegroups. The pedigree shows- the vessel combines the heavy firepower of eight Fellhammer artillery cannons, cutting-edge scanning and targeting computers, various stealth aspects, a relatively high fighter complement, and remarkable FTL speeds into a single, sleek package The bling further shines through in it’s price tag; for it’s size, the ship is incredibly expensive, and manufacturing time is high. Consequently, the vessel is rarely assigned outside of primary flotillas in active hotzones, council Battlegroups, specialty assault fleets, and other niche/important combat groups. This has become especially true in recent months, as the Cor Redor Incursion has sent demand skyrocketing- and while production has been ratcheted up accordingly, the vessel has become a priority target among Cor Redor armadas, meaning most Revelations simply end up replacing those lost in the field instead of bolstering additional fleets. Still, when properly protected, Revelations can absolutely wreak havoc against heavier threat forces such as battleships and installations- making them highly prized through the PCG. Design History and Details Interestingly, the progenitor design of the Revelation dates back to the 2400s, some time after the Battle of Sector 001. Desperate for a counter against the Borg, Starfleet commissioned Special Project JD47B to design a combat-oriented “escort” vessel armed with kinetic weaponry, designed to pierce Borg shielding and circumvent their adaptation to energy-based weaponry. The effort was effectively canceled due to a breakthrough was made in the manufacturing of transpharic torpedoes, allowing them to be supplied much more liberally across the board- but the design stayed on record, lest it be needed again. By the 2570s, the “Genesis class” had indeed been resurrected in a bid to diversify weaponry against ever-changing enemies. The project soon received priority status, rapidly producing several operational prototypes for field testing. The fruits of these endeavours were largely judged to be a failure, being considered substandard in several critical areas (particularly acceleration and power consumption*); however, the design’s experimental features -including the precursors to modern projectile weapons and innate stealth features- proved promising enough for limited operational use. Many of the issues raised in testing borne out in deployment- which, when combined with it’s almost-universal unpopularity, lead to an early mothballing. When the Phoenix Command Group was officially recognized by Starfleet’s Security Council, the UFP provided the budding combat force with several obsolete or otherwise unwanted ships at a significant discount- the early Genesis prototypes among these. Of the twelve provided, now recommissioned “Revelation”, only one is currently still intact; all others have been either destroyed or decommissioned, mostly in the group’s early days (it would seem that even in the hands of the PCG, the vessels still performed like underachievers). In addition, projectile and stealth tech had advanced by leaps and bounds between the launch of the Genesis and the foundation of the PCG- further degrading the ship’s few advantages. The design was revisited several years later under {Project:Enlightenment}, ordered directly by the PCG Council to find a lighter, more versatile alternative to the standard Superdestroyer artillery battleships for the PCG’s more elite combat fleets. To shave off design costs, engineers modified the original Revelation’s hull instead of developing a new one; in doing so, they nearly doubled the size and fixed many of the non-inherent issues. To rectify the power-generation issues, designers chose an unconventional approach: total overkill. The vessel was fitted with an inline octodirectional segmented core (technology usually reserved for large, particularly power-hungry capital ships) and three supporting, ejectable tridirectional cores, providing the vessel with notable power reserves for most situations. Previous advantages were also strengthened or brought up to par- primarily the vessel’s stealth capabilities. The updated Revelation was equipped with both cloaking and shader devices, located in close proximity to each other, allowing the captain to quickly shunt power between the two as necessary to optimize time spent stealthed. In addition, several advances were made in terms of passive stealth, making the vessel harder to detect at all ranges- essential for an artillery vessel lacking the durability to withstand returning artillery fire. It is also one of the first vessels to integrate flare-type countermeasures outside of specially-designed “wild-weasel” vessels, designed to distract or confuse hostile tracking- especially that of enemy missiles. Combined, Revelations proved exceedingly difficult to target at range, often forcing enemies to close in while the artillery ship blasted away. By far the vessel’s defining feature, however, are its primary armaments: eight Fellhammer warp artillery cannons. By wrapping a standard (albeit large) mass driver shell into a pocket of subspace, similar to how warp-drive-equipped vessels achieve FTL speeds, each Fellhammer can propel a shell at superluminal velocities towards enemy vessels; the bubble bursts upon contact with a ship’s shield, not causing damage but allowing the projectile itself to pass through unmolested and straight on to the ship’s hull**, as well as the ability to engage vessels traveling at warp speeds. Needless to say, such a weapon is absolutely devastating to anything it can hit- though the sheer range at which Revelations typically engage makes hitting all but the slowest targets, such as enemy capital assets, difficult or impossible to hit reliably. However, the projectiles are easily tracked, and the cannons themselves create a large sensor signature- making the ship an obvious target for retaliation from other long-ranged threat forces. Furthermore, each Fellhammer takes at least a minute and a half to reload, recalibrate, and fire again- often longer. Combine these factors with average-at-best survivability under direct fire, and it should be clear Revelations are only effective with significant support. Still, while it’s primary weapon systems were extremely potent against capital vessels, the ships remained vulnerable to closer-ranged attacks. To this end, the engineering team included several mid- and short-ranged weapons -including torpedo tubes and quantum phasers- to engage light harassment vessels, as well as heavy anti-fighter defences ranging from Oerlikon flak arrays to several phaser banks throughout the ship. This gained the ire of some captains, who complained the price was unnecessarily inflated by making the ship a jack of all trades when all it needed was stealth, artillery, and light anti-fighter weaponry -especially since actually using many of these weapons disrupted the calibrations on the Fellhammers, further decreasing refire rate- but were soon silenced when other uses for the vessel were found (See “Service History”, below). Seeing as the rate of fire on the artillery cannons would be a problem, designers opted for an vast array of advanced fire control subsystem and high-bandwidth communications relays, allowing squadron-command vessels to better transmit coordinates and firing data to other vessels in a squadron. A squadron of Revelations will often partially slave their targeting systems to the lead vessel to ease focusing fire; however, each ship determines its own targeting solution separately, as to prevent the loss of the command ship crippling the entire group’s targeting computers. In the uncommon scenario when Revelations are not the only class of ship in the squadron, they will often form the flagship and serve to coordinate fire control similar to pure-Revelation squadrons. In this way, Revelations can efficiently target enemies to prevent unnecessary overkill and optimize firing patterns. Although the Fellhammer mount allows for a wide degree of targeting and rotation, it was fundamentally inhibited by the positioning; structural concerns precluded mounting on the ship’s bow, resulting in most being mounted on the ventral hull (and a pair on the dorsal)- limiting the weapon’s damage potential by restricting the firing arc of its heavy weaponry. To partially rectify this, the ship’s drive system was entirely revamped to include four retropulse maneuvering thrusters -once again, a move usually reserved for unwieldy battleships- and enhanced the existing impulse drives with additional thrust vectoring, allowing for near-unparalleled maneuvering along the ship’s centerline. Still, this proved to exacerbate existing issues with sluggish acceleration and lackluster top speed, as the modifications to the impulse drives required lowering potential thrust output- a loss the additional retropulse engines couldn’t counterbalance. However, the ability to bring maximum firepower against nearly any target in the blink of an eye -or to rapidly adjust shield facing in the case of a close-in assault- was judged to be a higher priority over mobility for the vessel’s designated role. Twelve prototype Revelations were built and delivered to Section for Assault Operation’s Jupiter fleet; these were deployed as combat vessels, in order to test the design in the field. As a result of the recommendations generated from these trials, all Revelations built after the initial batch of twelve also featured expanded fighter capacity, improved shield regeneration, and more stealthy FTL performance with decreased charging time. While these changes increased power drain significantly when taken all together, they also made the vessels better able to handle situations wherein support was unavailable- features deemed necessary by analysts, given their sometimes-unconventional usage by several commanders (as well as their propensity to become priority targets for hostile fleets). These changes were later effected to the original twelve Jupiter Fleet ships, a process just being completed when the fleet was ordered to mobilize for war against the Cor Redor. Service History The class flagship, the PCG Revelation, was launched two months ahead of schedule from Proxima Epsilon Fleet Yards in the heart of PCG space. The hull proved capable, if lethargic, and most subsystems operated at or near end-goal target efficiency levels. After three months of testing, the ship was retired to drydock for refitting as another eleven vessels were completed; these were sent to the SAO’s Jupiter fleet for field testing. These original twelve saw their first action against the Eden’s Pillagers pirate cartel, providing fire support as the 64th cruiser artillery squadron for friendly capital ships as they assaulted high-value targets such as illegal black market stations and Takeda marauder battleships. Commanders who fought with the 64th spoke highly of the design, citing a superior ability to put superluminal shells downrange compared to most other artillery vessels. Though not capable of outputting the sheer barrage of firepower typical of Superdestroyers, nor of the pinpoint precision and extremely long range associated with light “sniper”-type artillery vessels, Revelations did successfully combine mixes of both to produce a ship capable of easily devastating enemy capital vessels and stations alike- though, that said, their general fire-control or command capabilities did not go completely unnoticed either. Perhaps most notable about the vessel’s combat debut, however, was its use in an independent raiding role. Preceding a large attack, the 64th would warp to a secondary target (generally a supporting station or some such) in a nearby system or planet and attempt what amounts to a drive-by shooting: firing shells at long range at targets of opportunity. The Revelations would almost always be out of range of effective retaliation- and even if they weren’t, the ship’s commanders would use the available stealth tech to remain hidden (usually, this meant cloaking while acquiring the target and using the shader once rounds started flying). Though the shells could still be tracked,the use of stealth would make finding an accurate targeting solution nearly-impossible, and thus forcing the enemy to close with fast-attack vessels for fire-control or direct-engagement purposes. Once these spotter vessels were detected, half the squadron would reacquire targets to combat them; the rest would continue to hit whatever high-priority targets were in range. In this way, even a smaller group of Revelations could deal significant damage to and enemy force with minimal damage sustained. However, once enemy spotter ships finally did close the range, Revelations had neither the close range weaponry to repulse them for long, nor the survivability to weather the now-incoming return fire; resultingly, the arrival of the first wave of response vessels effectively forced a retreat. It was this alternate role that prompted the refit post-prototype. Demand for Revelations rose rapidly once commissioned, being one of the first ships introduced by the PCG smaller than a heavy cruiser while also boast heavy long-range firepower. However, long production times, high up-front costs, and apparent lack of necessity resulted in a slow early production run. This all changed when the Cor Redor hit; when it became clear this new enemy presented quite the formidable force, production was greatly accelerated across the board- and especially so for powerful new vessels like the Revelation. Commanders of all ranks and positions fought for the assignment of a Revelation to their fleet, often to supplement existing artillery groups. However, the majority of fleets only acquired a few Revelations, if any, due to the design’s high rate of attrition in higher-priority units- mainly Council Battlegroups and special-operation flotillas. Paradoxically, the Revelation was almost too effective for it’s own good; it’s combination of high anti-capital hitting power and relatively low durability often made it a priority target amongst hostile fleets, and Cor Redor captains would often go out of these way to harass them with whatever strike craft and lighter corvettes they could muster. Many Revelations intended to be used by standard combat fleets were instead rerouted to replace those lost in the frontline assault groups, resulting in only a few units possessing most of the type throughout most of the war. In what fleets it was available, however, Revelations were extremely popular; many fleet commanders came to rely on Revelations as dependable, hard-hitting “battleship breakers”, damaging or destroying heavy enemy assets before they could close to weapons range. With the increased fighter screen, Revelations could also fend off hostile strike craft and light ships with limited effectiveness- though they still required significant support against any semi-determined attack. Summary All told, the Revelation is a highly-effective vessel, designed to lay waste to hostile heavy threat forces at range. Although suffering from a high loss rate, a squadron of Revelations was one of the PCG’s most reliable anti-capital system short of battleships and dreadnoughts Throughout the First Incursion. However, production difficulties resulted in relatively little dispersion, as almost all of the ships produced were routed towards the most important fleets to replace those lost in the conflict. Images